So many heart-breaking moments, all outdone by the most heart – warming moments.

Synopsis

Welcome to The Starfish Café – where you will find stunning views, delicious food and lifelong friendships.

Two broken hearts.

Since she inherited The Starfish Café, Hollie has poured her heart into the business, striving to keep her mother’s traditions and warm-hearted spirit alive. But behind closed doors Hollie is searching for true happiness, as she grieves the tragic loss of her family who were once the beating heart of the café…

An unexpected meeting.

Jake lives by two rules: don’t let anyone get close and don’t talk about what happened. Little does he know that a chance meeting at The Starfish Café, facilitated by a fluffy lost dog, is about to turn his world upside down…

The chance to love again.

Can Hollie and Jake break down the barriers that have been holding them back from finding love and happiness, before Christmas comes around? Afterall, with courage, nothing is impossible…

My review

Hollie is the owner of The Starfish Café. She loves the place with all her heart, because it’s the place which contains so many happy moments. She is determined to keep her mother’s traditions alive, and is trying to offer the customers a warm place to have a cup, just like her mother did.
But as for her own happiness, Hollie has a long way to go, because she is still trying to cope the loss of her whole family, which tore her heart apart.
When a lost dog brings Jake in her life, it seems that Hollie is ready to start looking forward again.
But Jake has his own sad story… because of his past, he won’t let anyone get closer and he surely doesn’t talk about it…
Both Hollie and Jake have their walls built so high, but maybe their meeting can be the start of wrecking those walls.

So… whenever I start reading a Jessica Redland, I am prepared, surrounded by tissues, a soft pillow ready to use as comfort and all possible communication devices turned off.
I know that I will be on a huge rollercoaster of emotions, and I thought I was ready for a new marvellous story.
But I didn’t expect that I would be searching for my tissues so quickly and so often!
If suddenly there is a lack of tissues in Belgium, I sincerely apologize and totally blame the author!!!

Hollie is part of a close, loving family, and they are just the family everyone would dream of. Even Hollie and her brother are very close. It’s a family where the love is obvious from the very moment. So when Hollie doesn’t only lose her brother and father in a tragic accident, but later on also her mother, my heart just broke, almost literally!
I felt so much sadness for Hollie, and has a real sense of injustice for everything she had to endure! However I admired her also, because she does whatever she can to keep the Café as how her mother imagined.
After her last relationship ended in one of the worst ways possible (I for a moment even thought that is was even worse!) she surely doesn’t have time for love, which I somehow understood perfectly.

May I say that Jake has the most horrible sister in the world? Being blamed for everything the siblings lost is just so wrong is so many ways… Grieving over loss could have been a moment for getting closer, but everything Jake has endured, even in the past and still is, is just so so so wrong!
I just wish I could slap her!
Luckily Jake could count on his grandmother, who tried her best to shield Jake from more hurt and just giving him all the love possible.

Both stories are so terrible, and I was hoping that the both of them meeting, would be the end of all the heartbreak and now a wonderful future would be lurking around the corner, with the cutest dog ever sitting beside this couple.
Unfortunately, it’s not easy..

First of all, the dog, Pickle… what a luck that Jake found him, because the owner surely isn’t worthy of having such a wonderful dog!

And when there are moments when everything seems to reach the perfect conclusion, things of the past that were not spoken about, are being revealed, making both Jake’s and Hollie’s past even more heart – breaking! And how clear it is that there is still to be cleared…

Now, I know I have been talking about all the sad, heart – breaking moments… but there are so many lovely, sweet, heart – warming moments in it too! And all these happier moments surely make up for the tissues I had to use!

Despite all the heartache, it was so heart – warming to read how these two broken persons found each other. It’s obvious they deserve all the love in world and even if they are not totally alike, they have so much common, and understand what grieve can do to you.

The author managed to write again a book that’s just impossible to put away! The characters are not to be pitied, but to be actually admired. Despite everything they went through, they find the courage to face their fears, take a leap of faith and dare to put themselves back out there.
Being together is that little nudge they both needed to get over their fears.

This is just a wonderful story, that will fill you with joy and hope, and will fill your house definitely with dirty tissues!!!
Again a new masterpiece by this author, and now I’m already counting the days for her next book!